


Two Truths and a Lie

by MissDragonSpire



Category: Discord Murder Party (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Moderate language, Psychological Horror (...?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 11:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19294501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissDragonSpire/pseuds/MissDragonSpire
Summary: Vincent Marshall Reid. That is the name the man repeats to himself to cling still to sanity. To hope. The game is set, but the pieces are turned to play against, not for. There is no winner but Her.





	Two Truths and a Lie

**Author's Note:**

> This was written after episode 6: You Can't Save Them All. You Can't Save Anyone, and for Vincent Reid's awakening. At the time of writing, I wasn't aware of reflections being a thing, and what an Awakening entailed, so this is a little outdated. Take from it as you will.

"Vincent. Vincent, Vincent, your name is Vincent Marshall Taylor...n- _no,_ it's Vincent Marshall _Reid._ You're _Vincent. Marshall. Reid._ "

The man had been hunched in the same position, crouched with bent knees and his knuckles pressed to his forehead, for a long enough time that he'd lost track of the minutes. When the island swallowed him whole he expected to merely die - and stay unconscious until he was meant to play again.

Instead, he had been left here to fight a losing battle in the name of revenge for hijacking the games.

"Taylor is your _daughter._ Abigail is your wife. You have a son named Marshall, given your middle name. Abigail Reid, Taylor Reid, Marshall Reid, they all stayed behind. They...M-marshall was safe when you left him."

No... _nonono..._

She took Marshall, she took his son away from Abigail to play these sadistic games with him. How could he be so stupid to think that a witch, able to enter a crashing plane, would ever keep his family safe?

"Abigail is your wife, your wife's name is Abigail. You were married in June, the wedding cake was vanilla and chocolate because you two couldn't compromise on just one flavor."

The memory came out of nowhere, and he chuckled vacantly. That's right...of course they fought over the damn cake. She was a stubborn spirit, alright. And she only let him go because the troops needed him.

Stubborn...and brave in trusting that he'd come home. Her courage was the one thing he'd held onto as the plane fell, right before...before...who was in that plane with him? Why was -

"Vincent Marshall Reid! You can't forget that again, your name is Vincent Marshall Reid!"

Damn it. _Damn it!_

"McGillicutty!" Vincent pushed himself up from his crouch and charged into the abyss. His footsteps were hollow in the empty air beyond him. "McGillicutty, if you can hear me, I need y- _urk!_ "

Something sharp tugged at his throat. He was thrown onto his back as he choked on saliva.

"Hee-hee-hee. Are you still holding on, Vinny?"

The breath had left his lungs on impact, and he couldn't breathe even now. He watched the noose materialize and trail away into the dark behind him. The shadows parted for _her_ and the little red string that was pinched between her fingernails.

"No. No, y-you stay away from me!"

The blond licked her fangs, stepping over him. Clutched in the hand that wasn't swinging to make the string's end dance was a simple black dagger, with two four-pointed stars hovering over the cross guard. Vincent regarded it as a disgusting mockery of Christ's Cross.

"Aww...where's that fire you had so long ago, Vinny? You were so high and mighty then - where's it run off to?"

"Go to Hell." Vincent scrambled up and retreated from her. The slight tug from the distance reminded him too late.

Murder jerked at her end, the tether squeezed at his throat, and he was torn back to her feet. His skin burned, and he coughed, clutching the knot.

"Where do you think we are, old friend? This realm is mine. Y'know, for someone who was so clever before, you aren't showing much intelligence now."

"Shut up." He dug his nails into the knot, pulled and pulled at it. "Shut up, shut up, _shut up._ " His nape felt like it was on fire, so he let go. This stupid knot never came undone - it was just another illusion of freedom, a thing disguised to look too simple to escape from.

"Look," Murder sighed. "You should be thanking me. I'm doing you a favor; in a few minutes you won't remember why you've been crying at all. That pain will go away for good. But not while you're fighting it," she chided, kneeling over him and cupping his chin. "You're just hurting yourself. So give up. Relax, and don't worry about it."

"No. No, you shut up right now. You shut the hell up right now." He shoved her hands away. He couldn't lose them again. After this...this shit that Murder had put him through, holding onto his wife and his children was all he had left. This was the only thing keeping him real.

Murder didn't show much in the way of being bothered by this. "Fine. But it's gonna happen. Vincent Marshall Reid is going to die."

Vincent shivered where he was slumped. The fire had been out of him ever since being put here. Murder had told him his once-upon-a-time of how he'd died and exactly what she did to his little boy. He'd been a fool to demand knowledge of his family's fate; somewhere Marshall was being stripped of his memories, too...or he already had been...just a made-up name applied to a husk. 

But Abigail was...she was okay, right?

"You never told me what happened to my wife."

"Hm?"

" _Abigail._ What did you do to Abigail?"

The Murder God often had a glint in her eyes when misery fell on the players. They sparked gold then, and they sparked now as though they had been touched by Midas.

"I don't owe you anything, Vinny," she giggled. "I counted us even when Marshall succumbed to the poison, dead in your arms. So you get nothing from me." She turned away. "Maybe you should consider that before y-"

Vincent grabbed his end of the string before he could think, and yanked as hard as he could. Murder's arm shot back, followed by the rest of herself, and then she was eating dirt. 

"You..." She turned over, trembling, as four maroon eyes seared open on her cheeks. " _You little fu-_ "

"What do you want from me?"

"Excuse me?"

But Vincent waited for her to get it.

Murder looked him over...and grinned. "Ohh, I see...you wanna make a deal? You wanna give me something so you can have closure on your sweet Abigail?" She blinked away the additional eyes. "Fine. I'll tell you what I want." She brought Vincent back to her as she stood back up, and laid a hand over his throat. "I want you to beg."

Vincent took his turn to blink.

"Yeah. Just beg. I want you to _squeal,_ just like a little piglet, because having that closure is your only rope to sanity...just how badly do you want that, Vinny? Bad enough that you'd accept that I could just as easily make something up than tell you 'Abigail is safe'? Because, let's be honest, when that's all you'll ever hear of her, it's just too rich to resist."

Was he really above his pride? He'd gotten himself into his share of fights over Abigail and his own honor - not to mention the hijacking of the game before this last one - but this had nothing to do with honor, or being clever as Murder kept saying. He could fight her for the remainder of existence...but she was the only person who knew what had become of Abigail.

"Please, Murder." He wheezed, Murder digging her nails into his Adam's apple. " _Please._ "

"Mm, not really feeling in it the 'squealing' department, but I think I'll take it." She pushed him away. "And since you at least tried to sell it, I'll throw a little game in, too."

"G..."

"Relax, you're not going to turn into someone for this. This is just me talking. More specifically, I'll tell you three things about your Abigail. Two of them are real, and one is fake. No catch, and no need to tell me which is the lie. You'll simply be left here to think it over for the rest of your existence as Vincent Marshall Reid. Sound fair?"

Given that this seemed to be her definition of such an uncharacteristic word, Vincent felt he couldn't do much else but accept. He nodded.

"Good." She paused a moment, seeming to gather her thoughts. "Abigail, when she heard that your plane had crashed, she locked herself in the bedroom and mourned for six months straight."

Vincent shook his head. Abigail was stronger than that. That strength, that bravery was just one thing that made him fall for her.

"Alright, if you insist," Murder shrugged. "Number two. She was too scared to tell your little ones that daddy was gone. So she told them that you simply disappeared. Got lost on the way to the hangar."

"My wife is not a liar-"

"Ah-ah, the adult is talking, Vinny. Now, your daughter was mature enough to know otherwise and accept it, but your son. Your strapping young lad was so brave, he snuck out late at night with nothing but a flashlight and candy bar, meaning to go find you. And you could say he succeeded."

_No._ That was the lie. Mourning, he could accept. Anyone could lose to grief, right? But Abigail would have told them the truth. She had to have.

"And number three. Oh, I think you'll love number three. This one, well she knew that when good men volunteer for war, they die. And she couldn't take the possibility of becoming a widow. So she took up an affair with a fisherman. Beefy guy, all abs and dirty blond hair, and he had a good, _safe_ job."

Vincent shot up. "She wouldn't cheat on me!"

"I'm talking-"

"No! You don't get to pull this shit on me! Angel might have lied and wept over me, but she wouldn't have cheated! That's the lie!"

Murder was beaming for some reason, but she continued on as though not interrupted. "And then, when she heard you died, she remarried to Mr. Fisher Guy and told the kids that they had a new daddy. Marshall got so upset by this that he ran away to look for you."

"Shut up, _shut up!_ "

"And now you get to mull over what's real in her life for the last few minutes that you know who she is." Murder turned away. The string began to evaporate behind her. "Actually," she paused, glancing back, "I think I'll let you keep them."

"What?"

"What I've just told you." she clarified. "You'll remember it all, but not who the people applied to those facts are." She gasped in mock horror. "Or are they lies...?"

Vincent broke into a cold sweat, himself trembling with the rage that Murder displayed before.

"And all throughout our games and intermissions," she continued, "you'll wonder what any of what it could possibly mean, and why you're the only one who has that knowledge. But you'll never have an answer. And I can't wait to watch it drive you mad.

"See you in the next game, Vinny. Hee-hee."

And she vanished into the dark, the string eaten away until the burn on the man's neck left him. For now.

He panted, eyes darting to where she might have been watching him.

This couldn't...she couldn't do this to him. He...

He had to keep remembering. It was the only way he'd stay sane and stay hopeful that he could get back to the woman she kept talking about.

No, to the man she kept talking about?

No, it was definitely a woman. Her name was Angel - no, Alice.

"Damn it! Focus!" He stomped hard and willed himself to remember that this person was alive and that they had moved on. Yes, because they had gotten remarried to someone.

Did that imply that he was married to them? So then that meant this person was a woman, right? 

No, wait, the Murder God said that they had locked themselves in a room after someone died. How could they get remarried if they were in their room? Did they have the marriage in the room? What a strange wedding.

No, no, then that wouldn't explain why the child had run away. They wouldn't have gotten married if their kid had run away. They'd be too upset about it to make the vows.

But Murder said one of these things was a lie. Unless she was lying herself and they were all lies, or truths, or there were just some of either. So then it was his job to deduce which was what in between these games.

Someone had run away from home because...wait, just who was it that ran away? Why did he know that someone ran away, was this person connected to him?

Who...who was he to them? Why did they matter to him if there was no connection?

"My name..." There was a sudden sense of urgency in him, like he was supposed to be doing something right now, fighting something right now. What was the name?

What was it?

The man fell to his knees and pressed his knuckles to his forehead. "My name is...Charlie. No, it-it's Reed. V-victor...?"

He was supposed to be repeating something out loud. He had to keep saying it, it was the only way he could learn why someone had remarried or stayed in a room for six months or why another someone had left with a flashlight and a candy bar in the dead of night. This was the game set before him, and this was how he was supposed to win.

"M-my...name...is


End file.
